January 07, 2005
Emotion
Most debates/arguments/ideas - be they philosophical or pertaining to economic policy - are often liberally laced with "rational", "logical" and such sinister words.
I say sinister because they deviate our attention from the principal thing driving, originating, and facilitating conversion into most ideologies: emotion. Most of which is anger and its variants. An anger towards the "other" people. One attains a certain set of ideas, due to emotional undercurrents from brainwashing/reading/thinking, and from then on there is an implicit and sometimes even explicit animosity towards those of a different mould.
Make no mistake - reason and logic and such are mere tools to further the emotional agenda. Consider the average atheist. His blood boils at the foolish religious morons who seem to be blinded by irrationality. He cannot fathom how they can be so ignorant unlike his enlightened self. The very fact that his blood boils should tell him something. About the drive maintaining his atheistic ideology.
No, it's not rationality.
What the hardy atheist forgets is that it was emotion, not logic, which converted him. And it is emotion, not logic, which is maintaining his "drive" for atheism. Logic is a mere tool that is frequently cast to the winds when it doesn't suit The Fuhrer Emotion's agenda. The empirical fact that cognitive dissonance is so prevalent in almost everybody can be deduced as a ready corollary of this.
Thus, when I see bristling atheists trying to convert theists by "cold" logic, I can only wonder what led to their amnesia. It was by emotion that he was converted, and it is by emotion that he too has to approach the problem of proselytization.
This holds even for converting misguided socialists.
In a distant evolved future, there shall be no blind faith, and human drive shall
be entirely comprised of logic instead of emotion. That future is not now.
I say sinister because they deviate our attention from the principal thing driving, originating, and facilitating conversion into most ideologies: emotion. Most of which is anger and its variants. An anger towards the "other" people. One attains a certain set of ideas, due to emotional undercurrents from brainwashing/reading/thinking, and from then on there is an implicit and sometimes even explicit animosity towards those of a different mould.
Make no mistake - reason and logic and such are mere tools to further the emotional agenda. Consider the average atheist. His blood boils at the foolish religious morons who seem to be blinded by irrationality. He cannot fathom how they can be so ignorant unlike his enlightened self. The very fact that his blood boils should tell him something. About the drive maintaining his atheistic ideology.
No, it's not rationality.
What the hardy atheist forgets is that it was emotion, not logic, which converted him. And it is emotion, not logic, which is maintaining his "drive" for atheism. Logic is a mere tool that is frequently cast to the winds when it doesn't suit The Fuhrer Emotion's agenda. The empirical fact that cognitive dissonance is so prevalent in almost everybody can be deduced as a ready corollary of this.
Thus, when I see bristling atheists trying to convert theists by "cold" logic, I can only wonder what led to their amnesia. It was by emotion that he was converted, and it is by emotion that he too has to approach the problem of proselytization.
This holds even for converting misguided socialists.
In a distant evolved future, there shall be no blind faith, and human drive shall
be entirely comprised of logic instead of emotion. That future is not now.
COMMENTS:
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No Anon, I'm not kiddin.
This post was actually devoid of any logical arguments supporting the main thesis. This was due to the main thesis itself - that it's emotion that plays a major part in conversion =)
Basically, the point is subtle. I agree than emotion does not drive people's belief in tautologies such as that 2+2=4 under tappropriate definitions and system. But most ideologies are not tautologies/evident truths. As an earlier post argued, both theism and atheism are induced hypotheses.
EVEN if one is faced with a more rational alternative,
cognitive dissonance makes one prevail with existing ideologies (unless the contradictions become too glaring). What helps the human tide over the dissonantial inertia is emotion. THAT is why it is difficult to convert from theism to atheism. Not a lack of rationality - the most rational people I know are theists - but due to way we are wired wrt emotion and rationality.
This post was actually devoid of any logical arguments supporting the main thesis. This was due to the main thesis itself - that it's emotion that plays a major part in conversion =)
Basically, the point is subtle. I agree than emotion does not drive people's belief in tautologies such as that 2+2=4 under tappropriate definitions and system. But most ideologies are not tautologies/evident truths. As an earlier post argued, both theism and atheism are induced hypotheses.
EVEN if one is faced with a more rational alternative,
cognitive dissonance makes one prevail with existing ideologies (unless the contradictions become too glaring). What helps the human tide over the dissonantial inertia is emotion. THAT is why it is difficult to convert from theism to atheism. Not a lack of rationality - the most rational people I know are theists - but due to way we are wired wrt emotion and rationality.
You're good at this shit. Your posts on Emotion as well as Economics were good.
My.. we have another Soumen in the making.
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My.. we have another Soumen in the making.
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